Ascending Soul - a poem by Rumi

I died as mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?

Yet, once more, I shall die as man, to soar
With angels blessed; but even from angelhood
I must pass on; all except God doth perish.

When I have sacrificed my angel soul,
I shall become what no mind e’ev conceived.
Oh, Let me not exist! For Non-existence
Proclaims in organ tones, “To Him we shall return.”

In the first part of this poem Rumi celebrates himself for his evolution from mineral state to the state of being born as human being. The realization of the fact of his own evolution gave him the sound basis for having unwavering faith in still better possibilities lying ahead.

In the second part of this poem Rumi says that when one dies to one’s mean and small ordinary psychological self (lower-self), and is reborn - the angelic qualities of unconditional love, compassion, child-like pure godly wisdom, etc becomes his very nature - one soars with angels blessed. But, he continue to say, except the Absolute (Akshar-Brahm), such relative immortality (existence after death as angel or god) comes to an end at some point of time, however inconceivably long may be such existence in angelic self.

In the third part of this poem Rumi says that realizing this (mortality of relative immortality) he sacrificed the attachment (the sense of oneness) with the bliss and enlightenment of angel soul, and became fana in Him. (To be fana means to lose, that is, to totally disregard one’s angel-self before the vastness, source-ness-of-everything and glory of The God). Then, he experienced the state, which no mind (even the mind of angel soul) can fathom. And that fana-state proclaimed “To Him we shall return”.

Place of verse in my life

I wonder, in my life what's the place of verse?
It does place my bosom beyond the purse,
From where it becomes possible to see
Many a motive, playing their part in me;

And from that beauty, when I listen to words,
It unfolds the feeling that sound affords;
And, helps me learn how to conceive and wait
But of that sweet soft pain, what could be writ!

I, even in a furious or pensive mood,
If sit to write, my Muse uses it as food
And, from that, cool vividness does create;
With this bright ink her pen grafts my fate.

Who could gift such a wondrous wealth to me?
Ah! It’s hugging hand of my darling, thee!!!

Truth liberates

I was just asking myself, What the phrase "Truth liberates" practically means for me? Have I ever knowingly or unknowingly experienced such moments of liberation so far? If yes, then, what I mean by Liberation? Obviously by Liberation I do not mean “Moksha or Nirwana” in traditional sense. For me Liberation means a moment of beautiful state of Being when there is clear absence of inner chatter, emotional turmoil propelled by inner compulsions, or uneasiness of guts, and there is clear perception of facts without any condemnation or attachment, and so unbiased, uncompelled decisiveness & action becomes possible on its own. We all have experienced such few beautiful scattered moments in life.

What sets in this process of liberation? It says, Truth Liberates. What we mean by truth here? When one sees in the moment bare fact, leaving aside one’s likes-dislikes, opinion or the immediate beneficiality of the thing in question, a strange feeling of beauty, peace, freedom & here-now-ness comes into being. This is a moment of freedom, liberation. However, it has different degrees & scales. So, by seeing the fact as fact, truth comes into being for one in the moment.

It moves, proceeds moment to moment so it can never be static. Now one experiences such moment of freedom but in the next moment if the inner verbal process of opinion forming begins, or like-dislike or fearful uneasiness of guts comes into picture, one loses it and again one is in ordinary state of Being. So, the question is, is it possible to increase the frequency of such beautiful moments, and when it really occurs, is it possible to prolong it?